Lisa Graham Keegan

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Lisa Graham Keegan is a former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and the education advisor for Sen. John McCain's 2000 and 2008 presidential campaign. ^[1] In 1996, McCain was chairman of Keegan's campaign to be state superintendent. ^[2]

Ms. Keegan is a national leader in the area of education reform and accountability. The Economic Policy Institute called her "a conservative flag-bearer" on education issues promoting, "publicly financed vouchers for parents to use at private schools." ^[3] She advocates for parents to make informed decisions about their children's school, without undo interference by the government. According the National Review, she “created the most effective charter school program in the country.” ^[4] The Arizona Republic noted Lisa Keegan pushed “Arizona into the vanguard of school reforms in the 1990s and led national education changes favored by conservatives in recent years. ^[5]

Ms. Keegan is highly respected, even by her opponents, as a straightforward and honorable advocate for improving the educational system. ^[6]

Contents 1 Superintendent of Public Instruction 2 Education Leaders Council 3 Maricopa County Manager 4 Personal Background 5 References

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Prior to becoming state superintendent of public instruction, she served two terms in the Arizona House of Representatives in 1991 to 1995 where she was chair of the Education Committee. For a decade as an Arizona state official, Ms. Keegan led that state's education reform movement. She was first elected as the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1994 and reelected in 1998. This election was particularly significant because it was the first time in the history of the United States that all five of the top elected executive offices of a state were held by women: Jane Dee Hull, governor; Betsey Bayless, secretary of state; Janet Napolitano, attorney general; Carol Springer, treasurer; and Lisa Graham Keegan, superintendent of public instruction. As superintendent, she was the director of the Arizona Department of Education, the state education agency. Under her leadership, Arizona implemented the most dynamic charter school program in the country. ^[7]

As a state Representative and the Superintendent of Public Instruction she advocated for rigorous academic standards, annual testing, stronger accountability, and school choice. ^[8] She led the movement to enact the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS, test. This test, designed largely by classroom educators, set academic standards for high school graduation in reading, writing, and mathematics. ^[9] In response to public and political criticism of imposing academic standards for gradation, Ms. Keegan took all phases of the test and posted her passing scores. She continued to resist, often unsuccessfully, political pressure to delay and water-down the AIMS standards. Additionally, she championed into law the School Tuition Organization Tax Credit Bill. The bill created a tax exempt funding source for funding of scholarships at private schools or enrichment programs at publicly funded schools. ^[10] This law was the first time such a measure had been passed in the United States. It was vigorously opposed by union and anti-choice factions but ultimately upheld in both state and federal courts.

Lisa Keegan served on Governor Jeb Bush's Restructuring Team for Florida Department of Education and on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Education Policy Transition Team. On numerous occasions she provided testimony to the US Congress on current education issues, and briefed newly elected congressional members at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She was education advisor to candidate George W. Bush and a member of the administration transition team. In December 2000 she was one of only two candidates interviewed by then President-elect George W. Bush to be U.S. Secretary of Education.^{[11] [12]}

Education Leaders Council

In 2001, Keegan resigned as superintendent to accept the position of Chief Executive Officer of the Education Leaders Council (ELC), a non-profit, education reform organization Keegan and a number of other state school chiefs had founded in 1995. ^[13] ELC is an alternative to Council of Chief State School Officials (CCSSO), a more union-centric school organization, with close ties to organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). ^[14] Under Keegan’s leadership, it appeared at first that ELC would indeed rival the older, more established CCSSO, as ELC quickly secured federal funding for its reform-oriented project, Following the Leaders, to implement the policies of the No Child Left Behind education law.

In late 2003 and early 2004 a series of spurious articles in the Washington media led to the resignations of several of ELC’s directors. The allegations were of such a nature that ELC took legal action to stop further libelous reporting. ^[15] A subsequent investigation by the U.S. Department of Education initially found that ELC did not fully comply with federal regulations for the funds it was expending ,^[16] and federal procurement standards. ^[17] A final audit, however, showed that ELC’s financial and administrative management had actually under charged the Department of Education and outstanding grant funding was ultimately paid to the ELC’s spin-off organization, Following the Leaders. ^{[18] [19] [20]}

From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Keegan consulted with President George Bush, his domestic policy staff and Secretary Rod Paige on matters of education policy, as well as with the education leadership of 38 states. Significant policies and programs she helped implement during this time include No Child Left Behind Act, Following the Leaders School Implementation Program, American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, ^[21] Washington DC School Choice Program. In 2003 she was a member of Education Secretary Rod Page's Title IX Commission.^[22]

Keegan’s original three year contract was extended to September 2004, after which she became an independent education and public policy consultant.

Maricopa County Manager

In 2006, Keegan became a consultant to Maricopa County, Arizona and quickly became assistant county manager for community solutions and innovation. ^[23] In this role she improved both internal and external communications in the fifth largest county government in the U.S., and helped frame public policy issues for local government issues. She left Maricopa County in May 2008 to be able to join the McCain presidential campaign as education policy advisor. ^[24]

Personal Background

Born July 20, 1959, she has a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Stanford University (1981) and a master's degree in communication disorders from Arizona State University (1983). In 1998 she received the Milton Friedman Foundation Award for free enterprise innovation in education. She received the Athena Award from Athena International,^[25] and was named Education Leader of the Year by the National Republican Party in 1999. The Adam Smith Award for Economics Education was presented to her in 2000.

Ms. Keegan is on the board of the Century Council in Washington, D.C. Previously she served on Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, Empower America, Foundation for Teaching Economics, GreatSchools.net,^[26] Alliance for School Choice, and Children First America.

She has authored numerous articles for Education Next published by the Hoover Institute, the Manhattan Institute of New York, the Pioneer Institute of Massachusetts, as well as the New York Times, Arizona Republic and other periodicals.

In 1977 she won the title National Champion Horsewoman. Lisa Keegan is mother of five and is married to John Keegan, a justice of the peace. ^[27]

References